


Treguna Makoides Trecorum Satis Dee

by rabidsamfan



Category: Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971), Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-21
Updated: 2012-12-21
Packaged: 2017-11-23 23:54:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/627939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rabidsamfan/pseuds/rabidsamfan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s been decades since anyone has declaimed the magic words with all of the dramatic flair required, but that was before Sherlock picked up the book and started reading.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Treguna Makoides Trecorum Satis Dee

It isn’t something he wants for himself, but Sherlock can’t help but observe that John benefits from the occasions where he manages, in his own words, to “get a leg over” with some woman. The smugness he could do without, but the relaxed set of John’s shoulders, and the small smile breaking through as John assembles breakfast the next morning are worth putting up with the rest of it. John never has nightmares on the nights he has sex, and for that alone Sherlock is willing to Find Somewhere Else To Be during his flatmate’s dates. He even tries not to interrupt his flatmate’s dates. Not often at any rate. Not unless it’s an emergency.

He’s pretty sure this counts as an emergency.

Sherlock’s phone is in his coat pocket, and his coat pocket, unfortunately, is with the rest of his coat, twenty feet away, with the unicorn still trying to extract its horn from the heavy woolen folds.

“I told you it works,” says the small elderly curio dealer Sherlock has carried bodily into the uncertain shelter of the storage room. Paul Rawlins Browne might be nearly eighty, but he has retained the clear blue eyes and delighted smile of a child. “It just needs the right person saying the words.”

“And you’re not the right person?” Sherlock’s voice hasn’t cracked like this since he was fourteen, but these are definitely special circumstances. The lion appears to have caught their scent, and is trying to prowl closer, its wooden feet scrabbling noisily on the polished shop floor. To make things worse, Sherlock is quite certain he just saw the suit of armor in the corner shifting its weight from foot to foot.

“Oh, no. I never did have a lick of magic myself. Well, except for the travelling spell. And even that was only mine by accident.” Mr. Browne tightens the handkerchief around Sherlock’s ankle a bit more. “There. Try your weight on it now.”

Sherlock does, and sits down again quickly. Something shifts in the box beneath him and yowls a ceramic protest. Sherlock decides he doesn’t want to know. “No good,” he admits. “I think it’s broken.” He looks out through the crack in the door. The lion is definitely closer, and the unicorn is coming up from behind. “All right,” he says, accepting the impossible before it can bite him on the arse. “Magic works. Substitutiary Locomotion is real. Now how do we _stop_ them.”

“Can’t help you there,” Browne admits cheerfully. “There’s an all purpose stopping spell, but I can’t remember the words. It’s in that notebook of mum’s I wanted to hire you to decipher, though. Lesson three, I think it was.”

Sherlock groans. The notebook is on the table in the main room of the curio shop. Past the lion and the unicorn, and entirely too close to the fencing swords which are having a go at each other _sans_ fencers. Browne is too old to dodge the hazards out there, and Sherlock is pretty sure that if tries to go more than a step or two he’ll do something irreparable to his ankle. Not to mention what might get out of the box if he’s not holding down the lid. “John, I need you,” he tells the air.

Browne cocks his head curiously. “Who’s John?”

“John Watson. My blogger. The one I can’t call because my phone is in the coat which your ivory elephant is attempting to trample.” A thought occurs, ridiculously late. “Unless you have a phone?” He looks at Browne hopefully.

“Out by the cash register,” Browne says, waving a hand in the direction of the waltzing hats. “But it might be difficult to call your friend from there right now,” he admits. Then he smiles beatifically. “Shall I fetch him, then?”

“Fetch him?” Sherlock looks around. “Is there a back door?” He hadn’t seen any sign of one.

“Oh, something better.” Browne goes to sit on the antique bed in the back corner, and pulls a brass bedknob out from under the pillow. He twists it on to one corner post of the bed, and Sherlock blinks, wondering if he actually saw the knob shed a few fragments of pink glitter “Does your friend have a middle name?” the old man asks.

“Hamish.” Sherlock answers in spite of himself. There is definitely a glittery glow around the bed now, as Browne turns the knob and taps it.

“Bed,” he commands, “Take me to John Hamish Watson of Baker Street.”

“No!” Sherlock cries, but it is too late. In a flourish of pink light and stardust the bed is gone.

* * *

Fifteen long minutes pass, during which Sherlock has to get creative. The Fu Dog from the box he was sitting on is out in the main shop now, keeping the lion and the unicorn busy while Sherlock builds a barricade at the storage room door out of everything a man on his knees can shift without assistance. Luckily, most of the things in the storage room are in boxes, and as long as the seals hold he won’t have to deal with much more than things pounding to get out and a few tin soldiers that have abseiled down from a high shelf. The soldiers seem to be on his side at least. They’ve taken up defensive positions on top of the barricade.

Unfortunately the chaos seems to be spreading. There are screams outside the shop on Portobello Road, and if Sherlock’s not mistaken it’s the instruments in the music shop next door which have decided on a concert rendition of “The Loco-Motion” arranged for bagpipe, violin, harpsichord, and electric guitar.

When the bed shows up again, Sherlock nearly jumps out of his skin.

John is on it, thank God, and Mr. Browne, of course, and John’s date, whatever her name is, who looks like she’s going to faint. John and Mr. Browne, on the other hand, are carefully Not Looking at each other, in a way that suggests, along with the scarlet hue of John’s ears and the general disarray of his attire, that Mr. Browne’s arrival had interrupted John’s date at a crucial moment in the proceedings.

“John!” Sherlock cries with relief. “Quick, before the umbrellas break through!”

John jumps from the bed and comes to reinforce the door. He’s amazingly calm about the rattling inside the cabinet he pushes over to add to Sherlock’s barricade, and doesn’t even blink when the tin soldiers scramble to attention and salute.

“Back to your posts,” he orders, saluting back, and then bends to examine the makeshift bandage Sherlock’s ankle. “How did you do this then?” he asks.

“I stepped on that.” Sherlock points to the toy car that lays smashed on its back in the corner, its one remaining wheel spinning frantically. “And no, it wasn’t in the way when I started to put my foot down.”

“Ah.”

“Never mind the ankle, John.” Sherlock says. “I need you to get the notebook on the table so I can begin deciphering the stopping spell. We’ve got to contain this before it gets to the clothing shops up the street.”

John nods absently. “Well, as for that, Mr. Browne and I have been discussing the problem.”

“And?”

John turns to Mr. Browne, even as he puts a hand on Sherlock’s shoulder to keep him from trying to get up. “You’re certain that the spell was broken when your Miss Price was knocked out of the sky?”

“Oh yes. The Nazi’s blew up the workshop, you see, and she went arse over teakettle, right into the pricklebushes. Next thing we knew all of the armor and uniforms started to deflate and sink down. Didn’t matter – the Nazi’s were on the run already, and the Home Guard made sure they didn’t come back.” Mr. Browne scowls, and the expression looks entirely wrong on his amiable face. “She only ever did small magics after that. I don’t think she could do big spells without her workshop.”

“Well, she might have thought so,” John says. “But my Gran never bothered having a workshop. She just used what came to hand. Still, she never could keep a big spell going once she’d gone to sleep.”

“John?” Sherlock squeaks, as his brain scrambles to add the notion of John’s grandmother doing magic to the prosaic personage of his best friend. “Are you implying…”

“Not implying anything,” John says, examining the knuckles of his free hand. “I’m saying that if you knock out the magic maker, you knock out the magic.”

“That seems a bit extreme,” Sherlock protests.

“Yes, well, fortunately I have an excellent reason to want to punch you in the face right now.” John’s smile is entirely too cheerful. And toothy.

“But…” John’s grip on his shoulder is so tight Sherlock’s arm has gone numb, and somehow he’s been maneuvered so he’s pinned against the barricade.

“Think of it this way,” John says, as he cocks back his arm, “you can start deciphering that notebook after you wake up.”


End file.
